Ian Robertson
Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk everyone. Today, we have on one of my favorite guests, George Karampoulis, did I say it right, George?
George Karampoulis
Yes sir, good job.
Ian Robertson
I even rolled my R a little bit. I practiced.
George Karampoulis
I noticed.
Ian Robertson
George, you've been on the show before, but can you just remind our listeners who you are, what you do, things like that.
George Karampoulis
Yeah, I'm that guy with the annoying accent. I'm sorry, guys, but I'm, I'm from Greece. I'm here in US the last 12 years or so, and I started with construction background, and now I'm a home inspector for the last, I guess, nine years, five on my own.
Ian Robertson
Nice, cool. So George, the reason we have you on today is we're talking about building a good template. Now I'm going to caveat this with I have seen a lot of templates. We have templates within our app, Inspector Toolbelt, and when people transfer templates from other applications into our app, and I have seen some beautiful ones, like yours, and I've actually complimented you several times on your template, and has gotten to the point where you actually sell your template. And at some point, I'd like you to tell the audience where they can buy your template. It's not through ITB, so we don't get anything from this. This isn't a commercial. I actually really like your template, but I've seen some pretty awful templates. I've seen some that are so huge that even the inspectors will say, it takes me a good hour to rifle through everything to get my report written, but I want it all there, just in case I need it, and I've seen some that are just almost unreadable because of their comments and things like that. So I thought it'd be good, since we're talking a lot about reports this part of the season of Inspector Toolbelt Talk, of how to build a good template. And you've done that, and I want to see if we can pick your brain about that.
George Karampoulis
Well, let me say that, you know, I migrated from HomeGauge to Inspector Toolbelt. I think it's been like two years now. I remember that, or this is the second year, I think that, in the beginning, it took me about three, five months just bothering you with questions and how I do things that I wanted and things like that. So thank you for your patience.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, that's what we're here for.
George Karampoulis
And yes, I will agree also with you that I have, like, some people, the realtors, they send me some inspectors', you know, report so I can review it and tell them a second opinion. And sometimes I see them, I'm like, what's going on here? Like, what was, what was the inspector thinking? Something that could be said with one sentence was a whole paragraph and things like that. So, yeah, I'm glad to tell you what I did for mine, and then, you know, we take it from there. I bet you've seen 1000s, so I'm glad that you recognize mine as a good one.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, and if you'd like to reach out to George about his template, and George just helps guys out in general, a lot of our guests do, and I always appreciate that. But George, if they want to know about your template, how would they reach out to you just before we get into this?
George Karampoulis
Yeah, feel free to contact me, and I will give you a link. I will give you even a QR code that was provided so I can send you my template. But the main thing is that I want you to talk to me and let me knowwhy you want it. What do you expect from it? So I can see if I really can help you. I don't want you to just, you know, spend your money and do something that you won't feel like it's helping. So, yeah, just, I guess I don't know if I should give like my email or something?
Ian Robertson
Your preferred contact method. Yeah, if you want to give your email.
George Karampoulis
Just an email would do, and it's [email protected] which is again with accent, [email protected].
Ian Robertson
Yeah, no problem. And we'll have our people put that in the transcription here too. But George, I think the root of the issues that sometimes I find with templates. And I'm not trying to bash people, like I know more about a template than others. Like you said, I've probably seen 1000s at this point, but when I talk to an inspector about, hey, like, they're like, hey, what can I do better. I want to have a better template. I want it to be not only faster, but just as thorough and this and that, and I'll ask them questions, and the thing I hear them say all the time, or at least a lot, is but it makes sense to me that way. And I think we write reports too often and build our templates too often with what makes sense to us instead of what makes sense to others, and that becomes a problem, especially when we take on other inspectors, if we ever do, and we're like, here's our template, and they're like, oh, they're just not getting the hang of it. We should be able to hand our template to some inspector and them be able to go, okay, I get, I get 90% of this, and there'd be some idiosyncrasies, and that's not the case with a lot of templates. Would you agree with that?
George Karampoulis
Yes, I totally agree. Um, you know, they go from place to place, they try to be detailed sometimes, and they overdo it, like, I think that you've talked about in the past, like, you know, bedroom, 1-2-3, and then, you know, you have to change it according to the smaller or bigger houses. Yeah, I ran through that issue a lot. When I review other reports, I think that the main thing that you need to do is to just, yeah, you have to build the board template like the way that you do the inspection, like, how do you start your inspection and where do you finish your inspection? But at the same time, switch it a little bit to fit the clients, or fit the realtors, like, for example, for years I had the summary in the very end, and I had, you know, a lot of information there while now I send some questions to realtors, and one of the answer that they all gave me was, I want only the important things in the summary, and I want it on the top. So, you know, I made that change, and since then, everybody loves it. So you learn with time.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, and I think that's the perfect example. We're not talking about industry secrets of how to make a template, like something magical and mysterious. It's really not, it's simple, small things like that. There was an inspector that I worked with a while back, and I thought of him as you were talking. He always had his summary at the bottom. And his reasoning was, I want them to have to see the entire report before they get to that. And I'm like..
George Karampoulis
That's what I thought too.
Ian Robertson
And I'm like, oh, okay, like, the whole report is still going to be there for them. But if I'm a real estate agent and I'm trying to negotiate for my client, I don't want to scroll through, you know, semi loose toilet in third floor bathroom, and four paragraphs on that, and 120 other things before I get to the roof, which is the only thing that we can negotiate on, you know, the other stuff is going to be, you know, chipping paint on back porch. It's not going to matter as much. So just simple things like that. And you had sent over some some suggestions that I really like. Would you mind sharing some of those?
George Karampoulis
Yes, sir, but yeah, just to complete that, yes, I actually had exactly the same mindset. I was like, I wanted them to read the whole report, but then I realized that they have to go through the whole report, but they will go only, what, only if they bypass the important things, if the important thing scares them and they say, no, we don't, we don't continue. Then, yeah, it's done. So the realtors really love it that they have the important things on the top.
Ian Robertson
Yeah. That's a good point.
George Karampoulis
So now the first thing, the first recommendation that I have, is to be you, to be yourself when you write it. Don't try to sound too professional, because then you sound like an AI or a robot. Like use your own words, the ones that, when they picked up the phone to call you and you know, you explain things, how you do and what you do, that's what you want to say, the same simple words to normal people, like your clients.
Ian Robertson
I like that. And I like how you said that, because, as one inspector puts it, Jay Wynn actually, a repeat guest on here and a good friend of mine, he always says, we're bridging the gap between the technical and the average human. I like it when my doctor uses normal terms like, hey, that bump on your head that's going to go, that's going to hurt. Oh, okay, thank you. Instead of saying you have some big, long words and this and that, just tell me, bump on my head is gonna hurt. We don't want to insult people, but use normal human language that bridges the gap between technical and people.
George Karampoulis
I will use, if I'm allowed, your favorite example, hydrostatic pressure.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, yeah.
George Karampoulis
I have taken that to, you know I teach also, I offer continual education to realtors, and I even tell them, I said, okay, who here knows to tell me, please raise your hand. What's a hydrostatic pressure? Nobody does or maybe one, because he has some kind of background, you know. And I'm like, okay, so exactly that. In the report you want to see two, three sentences, if needed, of what did you observe? I observed a big crack in the basement, okay. Was the wall leaning? It was leaning. That's what I observed. What could the reason be? Yeah, you don't assume, but because of the evidence that you have, you know, rainwater, soil pressure to the wall, boom, (hydrostatic pressure). Why I put the parentheses? Because when they give that report to a contractor, to a professional, I want him to know that I know what I'm talking about. It's just that I put those two, three sentences for the client.
Ian Robertson
That's smart. And as you were saying that, I'm thinking, oh, this would be good for the contractor to not say bad things about us. He's like, he doesn't know what hydrostatic pressure is. And then all of a sudden, you have it in parentheses. I always like to break big words down, because I like that done for me. And I like to laugh because that word makes a sound, that phrase, rather makes us sound, fancy, like hydrostatic pressure. And everybody's like, whoa, what's that? And I'm like, hydro - water, static, laying around, pressure. I'm like, it's water laying around, creating pressure, whether it's upward or lateral or whatever.
Ian Robertson
I like it too, and I like that you're using that big, fancy word to teach real estate agents, because I actually used to teach a course. I haven't taught it in probably five, six years now, about how to interpret reports, and that's one of the examples that we use, because agents will get reports, and they're like, how do I interpret this? Because we used unfamiliar speech. Here's an exercise that I think every home inspector should do. I think you did this recently, and some other inspectors recently told me they were doing this. We do it every January. It's kind of what we do as home inspectors, right? We go through our comment list. Instead of us going through our comment list, ask our friend, cousin, wife, husband, whoever, and have them go through our comments and just let them read through it and say, click on each one of these, start reading them. Or better yet, if we want to put every comment we have in one report and send it to them, even better. If they have questions, what does this mean? What does that mean? I don't understand this. Then our comments are written wrong. Because sometimes we go through and we're like, oh, this makes sense, but it makes sense to us, or we give it to other home inspectors. I love that. Here other home inspector, read this. Does this make sense? Yes, of course. I'm a home inspector. I know what a bus bar is. You give it to the average person, and they're like, what? Especially if we don't have pictures, because, you know, a lot of us had pictures, but I'll see reports sometimes, and it'll start describing the inside of the inside of the electric panel, but the home inspector has pictures of other stuff, except for the inside of the electric panel. And it's like, well, what's all this technical jargon? You know?
George Karampoulis
I like it.
George Karampoulis
Yeah, actually, that's a great idea to give to some family, friends and evaluate. I like that. I will keep that because I started going through all the comments this month so I can clean it, because I also heard your previous podcast that you said, hey, you must have, you know, just five comments. And I started very nicely. I just had maximum five comments. And then I reached to the exterior wall, and I'm like, what's here? Why I have 20 comments here? So I lceaned it to be 10, but I promise I cannot do less than 10 on that yeah.
Ian Robertson
And no, and that's perfect. And that's perfectly fine, and that's a good example. And one of the things that you brought out, the fact that quick comments, or canned comments, as we like to call them, are important to have. I like to keep it to the top five. Top 10 is still fine, but once we get into 20 or 30 comments, I was actually doing the math recently, because there's this one home inspector, over 100 comments on one item. And I'm like, you're doing 200 inspections a year. So you're telling me you need to have all 100 comments, because you run into each one of those exactly twice a year. I'm like,and I did, I don't have the math in front of me, I probably should have, how long it took to scroll, pick the right one, occasionally picking the wrong one. It takes the speed out of having the top 10 comments in there of what goes wrong. Now, if you're an Inspector Toolbelt software user, we have what are called global comments. You want to keep those 100 comments in your global comments?You're like, oh, didn't I have a comment for this particular wall, and you can start typing it, and it'll still pull it out of global comments. Quick comments are one click. I'm going to go click, add to report, GFCI was not functional at time of inspection. Click. I want to click that. I don't want to type that, but I also don't want to have 50 variations of that comment.
George Karampoulis
Exactly, exactly. And that's actually what kind of I did. Like, I went to the comment section and I'm like, okay, so I find this very often. Let's type it there. I save the comment there. Then I go to the template, and I'm like, where do I find that issue? In the garage? In the interior wall? In the exterior wall? So I might have the same comment in three different sections, and that's perfectly fine. So for instance, I have, I keep seeing all the hairline cracks, and I want to know my clients. I am detailed. So my report is detailed. I want them to know that I saw it, but it's okay. Don't worry about it. It's just not putting it in the report. So I just have typical crack. This observable and similar cracks is typical for the age of the house, blah, blah, blah, okay, then I took this and I put it in the interior ceiling wall section, the garage wall. So with one click done, like I see, take a picture, click, done, bye.
Ian Robertson
And that's exactly it, especially in some things, I like to keep in the report as always there. So, for instance, I have never inspected a house where I couldn't put in the report somewhere minor surface damage noted, even on a brand new house, scrape on a wall, this and that, and most people just scroll right past it, because they're like, all right, whatever. But I've had clients be like, there was a dent in my fourth bedroom wall in the upper left hand corner where, you know, a curtain rod hit it. And they're like, why didn't you report on that? We've all had that client. I'm like, well, if you look in this section, it says minor surface damage noted throughout house, you know, monitoring repairs needed, or whatever we put in there, those kind of things. In my opinion, I like to keep in there all the time, because it covers you from that really overly particular client who wants a, you know, a blue tape inspection on a 20 year old home.
George Karampoulis
Correct, correct. One of my go to comments is that stays always, is that a few sections of the house that cannot be inspected, or we cannot reach something like that, because, so, yes, one comment that I always like to have in the report, and stays there forever, is that we cannot reach some areas of the house. Usually it's for the attic, because no matter how much I can see, or if I go all the way to the other side, I still cannot see behind insulation. I cannot see in the soffits. I cannot see some places, so I have things like that, or I like in every section, like interior exterior plumbing, to have information, and in, I created some checklists so I can go when in every house that I go, I can check different things. One of it is like, how did you inspect the attic? And I say, walked, but under it is always checked, not fully accessible.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, and I don't know if this is wrong or right, and usually, most of the time, I've run it by attorneys and other inspectors and all this stuff. But this one I don't really have any basis for, it's just what I've always done, and I've never had a problem with it. I assume that it's done good over the past 20 years, but I would always add percentages, so like, if the house is occupied, I write occupied, unable to inspect 35% of the house due to furnishings, curtains, things like that. And actually that did save me one time, because somebody pushed a couch up against a bunch of really big windows that were rotted out, and I couldn't get to it. It was stacked, and there were curtains in front of it, and they couldn't get to it in this big, fancy house. And what they were doing was they were hiding, you know, a $6,000 window issue. But I remember talking with a client who's really cool about it. He goes, I mean, it does say in your report, you couldn't inspect, you know, whatever percentage of my house because of the furnishings. And they do have, they did have all this stuff in front of the window. So he's like, we don't blame you, but we just want to let you know what happened. And I'm like, okay, so that does help. So I like to do percentages, and then that way I can go back and, like, say, there's an addict that was really, really full, normally, I'll say, maybe I can't inspect 35% hypothetically, because of insulation, like you said, and soffits and footing and whatever, but now it's really full of stuff, and I say, I can't inspect 85% and then they find termite damage up there or they find some sort of other other damage. And so what that'll do is the agent who's used me before says, oh, Ian, usually can't inspect 30% but he's at 85% on this one. They tell their client, they're like, I mean, he couldn't get there, so there's not much you can do.
George Karampoulis
It makes sense. I'm just bad at math, so I'm not good with percentages.
Ian Robertson
And to be honest with you, I don't know if it's good or bad, because that could create more liability than good, but it's just what I've always done. So I don't have anything to back that up. But either way, I like how you put that, and I like to put that in when the house is occupied, which is 95% of the inspections for us, so I like to put in there, not able to inspect the entire home, furnishings, things like that. And as a side point, I've said this before, when I walk out of a house, I take a lot of cya photos. And then over recent years, I switched to video. So I'll just video the whole house and then save it in Dropbox. So now I can go back and they're like, oh, well, you missed this giant hole in the floor. I'm like, well, here's a screenshot of the video, and it shows, you know..
George Karampoulis
The boxes standing there because they're moving at the same time it happened. Yes.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, you get it. But that's a really great suggestion that I don't think a lot of us utilize enough, because that protects us. We're telling them that we can't inspect for certain reasons. And I like to have something to back it up, you know, like a video. I love the video thing.
George Karampoulis
And you know what, especially the newer inspectors, because I was there and I thought the same thing. I'm like, no, what do you mean? No, don't, don't bring excuses. I will do the job that the other inspector does not do. And as the years passed, I'm like, I realized, oh, that's why they put it there. So I'm like, no, I will, it's not just covering, it's also explaining the reality,
Ian Robertson
Managing expectations. Yeah, a family member of mine had surgery recently, and they had to do something that they didn't plan on, and he wasn't happy about it. But then at the same time, they're like, he's like, they did explain it to me. They did tell me that this could happen. We defuse situations that we'll never know that we diffused by just having that stuff in there that you mentioned. Yeah, okay, I'll do the best job possible. But you know, this house is not only full, but I can't inspect the majority of it, because they're a hoarder. Have you ever inspected a hoarder house, George?
George Karampoulis
Once, I want to say that I disclaimed 90% if not, of the house. I was like, just, I could not inspect this that, like, I could not inspect the majority of the house. And actually, I think I used that, the majority of the house.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, I did. I've done several. One in particular was so bad, I don't even know why they had me there. There was this tiny little aisle, and I'm like, all I can see is a sink, a toilet and his bed. I'm like, I don't, why am I here? The only thing I did say is I worried about the structure, because you moved on the floor, and the whole floor structure went (funny creaking sound), you know, it was barely holding things up. And I'm pretty sure some of the stuff, well, yeah, he had stuff stuffed in the basement to the hilts. You couldn't even get in. So I'm pretty sure his stuff in the basement was the basement was the only thing holding the floor up. Crazy. Anyways, we digress.
George Karampoulis
Well, I would like to bring your attention to something because I learned it from you and I followed you for a while.
Ian Robertson
I want to hear this.
George Karampoulis
You know, I learned the hard way, but the choice of words that we use in the comments, like licensed versus qualified? You were saying, no, you always use qualified. I'm like, no, but he's licensed. You want a licensed. For example, not a handyman. You want a licensed professional. I used AI, I used Google, I used everything I could to find to prove you wrong, and everything proved me wrong.
Ian Robertson
I'm smarter than AI.
George Karampoulis
I had to change all of my comments because of you.
Ian Robertson
It really does matter, though, and that's not from me, to be perfectly frank. I learned it from others and primarily attorneys. Because remember, as you probably found out through your Google searches and things, qualified encompasses licensed if there is a license, but license does not encompass qualified, so licensed electrician does a bad job. They actually have, like, you just said, get somebody licensed. I got somebody licensed and they did a terrible job, whereas you say qualified and they get a terrible job. Like, what did you do to qualify them? Did you choose the cheapest one?
George Karampoulis
Did you check the other credentials of his?
Ian Robertson
Exactly.
George Karampoulis
So that's one, like qualified versus licensed. I would also always, and I did change it to qualified, recommend versus suggest. I used to say suggest to do this, but it's not, it's very soft. It's not as strong as the recommend. It's professional. The recommend is more like liable, you recommend because of the knowledge. You suggest because you just have an opinion.
Ian Robertson
Interesting, I never really thought about that. I never used the word suggest. I always say recommend, just because it's the vernacular I'm familiar with. But interesting.
George Karampoulis
You did it right, again.
Ian Robertson
No, no, no, I'm just curious of the legality of it. I'm gonna have to do some research on that. You give me something to think about.
George Karampoulis
So when it said, to be honest, I have my cheater here. It says that the recommend is strong. It's a professional word for liability. It shows contractors credentials and the importance of the issue. If you say recommend it is more important, if you say suggest it's more like minor issues, that's when you should use it, something that you just want an opinion to give, it's more soft, less urgent, casual things like that.
Ian Robertson
High five, George, I learned something from you today. Okay, so there you go everybody, recommend is a stronger word and more professional, more applicable for our profession than suggest. Okay, interesting.
George Karampoulis
The other thing is, like, review a picture versus see picture, for example. So I have a comment that says, review picture for observation, so divert their attention to the picture that the comment is for. And then you have general pictures like two or three. Let's say I'm in the crawl space and I put pictures of growth and, you know, like mold everywhere. And I say, see pictures for examples, because I don't want them to go to the front area and say, oh, you didn't put that. I'm like, well, it's an example. I cannot put 100 pictures I can show you or video the whole crawl space. So review for observation. See examples.
Ian Robertson
Okay. I like that. So basically when you say, even if you say, see picture for the issue, or see the picture for the observation, basically we're saying, this is the issue and we're isolating it, so then if they find it in other places, they get upset. Kind of goes along with the principle of group and comments together that we had a podcast on, whereas you say, see picture for example of the issue. Ah, now it's like, well, yeah, it could be other places. Here's an example, so you understand what I'm talking about. That's a good one. I might have to go through my comments and find anything that might say, anything like, see picture for the issue. That's how I would probably put it. You know, it should be an example of the issue and not the issue itself. Okay, yes, I like that, thank you.
George Karampoulis
Also, that's in the agreement. By the way, I have it in my agreement that the pictures will represent an amount of an issue, not the issue itself necessarily, because something that I see on the interior could be on the exterior, could be on the other wall on the other side. So I just show you a picture, an example of the issue that the comment explains.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, we have something in our agreements and in our reports that say something along those lines, any pictures provided in the report are a courtesy and are not all encompassing all issues, just so that people know, because you take a picture up at the roof of a leak and you say, you know, there's wood rot. Now, you didn't take a picture of the second floor and the first floor, and it comes down, second floor, first floor. It's like, I meant the whole thing, but they're like, but you only gave a picture of the upper portion. And no matter how you explain it...
George Karampoulis
Here's an example.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, here's an example. Exactly. I like it, perfect.
George Karampoulis
Um, and then last note I have here in my notes, I say something that I actually got it from the comments from the Inspector Toolbelt where it's an evaluation, such as or recommend evaluation versus review. So further evaluation is more important, because the contractor that you recommend will come and will evaluate from the beginning again the issue and find the solution to say to their clients, versus review. They can review either the picture that you have or they go in person and they review what we said, but not really put their knowledge into place to explain to the clients the solution that they need. So that's a few of the examples from my template.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, and we have a podcast that we're going to do on why I avoid the word further. But review, that is, and it depends on where you are, but either way, having a qualified specialist, I like the word specialist, review the issue is important, and I also like to make sure I add in disclaimers and stuff, or even sometimes in the comment, because I like to keep my comments more concise, but especially if it's an issue that I know, once you start tearing this apart, there's going to be more, I like to put in there, the specialist may/likely will find other issues or expanded issues once exploratory measures are taken. That way, when they get all angry and they go look at the report, they're like, oh, they did, say it, yeah, you know, diffuse situations.
George Karampoulis
I don't put this, which is a good idea. What I put usually is like I type, I have typed further evaluation. I recommend further evaluation. So not only what I say, but also take it from there.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, it really depends on where you are and what you're speaking about, but you're exactly right, and the word evaluation is better than review. Because for me, if you tell me I need further review on something, further review this issue, okay, I'm going to think that the person is going to review what the inspector already wrote. I don't want them to review what I wrote. I want them to see what I wrote and then evaluate the situation that I pointed out.
George Karampoulis
So speaking English, probably, you know, I viewed, and I suggest review. So exactly what you said, he will review what I viewed, no, I want evaluation, like, use your knowledge as a contractor for that subject that I called you and tell me what I need.
Ian Robertson
Oh, yeah. So what time saving tips, besides what you have already mentioned, has helped you to make your inspection report writing faster, but just as thorough. And I say it like that because sometimes guys will push back and say, I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of my report. I'm like, I'm not talking about sacrificing the quality of your report. I'm talking about clicking twice instead of clicking eight times, you know, something like that.
George Karampoulis
So one was what I said earlier, you know, like the typical crack, you create one comment that you can use in different places, right? I call this a repeater. Like you see it so much that you want to have it in different places. And it's okay if you use the same phrase, to me at least, to explain the same issue, just different area. I'm okay with that. Another repeater for me that saves you time because it's just a click away, but it doesn't make the report feel like you are a robot is to separate the comment from the suggestion, the recommendation. So let's say that you see a hairline crack again, I just say, and you say, this is a hairline crack, you know, patch it, paint it, you're good. Just saying. And then you say, monitor or recommend further evaluation by a contractor. Well, take that and make it as a different comment. Why? Because if you go to one, let's say to the living room and you find five different issues, or to the plumbing, 5, 10 different issues, you don't want under each comment every time to say, recommend further evaluation. Then again, recommend further evaluation. Okay, we get it. Just write all the issues, and then one time on the top or on the bottom, if you want, click, recommend further evaluation for all the above.
Ian Robertson
I'm really glad you brought that out, because when I would teach that course to the agents of how to interpret inspection reports, the biggest complaint and brought out almost every class, someone would complain, they're like, I'm tired of seeing further evaluation by a qualified contractor. And they would all start laughing, and they would all joke about how half the report was just that. And here's a little trick for our ITB user. So if you use Inspector Toolbelt, instead of having that further evaluation by a qualified contractor as one of your canned comments, put it in as one of your global comments, and then in the title, write something like AA or BB, something like that easy to remember. So then when you go to add it to a comment. So you add 15 comments to this thing in the living room that you found, like you said, all you do is type in BB and then poof that comes up at the end. Done. So now you basically can use that all in your report, anywhere in your report, by clicking just two letters. So, you put that up in the quick comment spot, so that way you can find it quickly, and then the full comment would just read that whole long thing about, you know, qualified contractor. However, we do it, just once, you know, just get it in there. We sound ridiculous when we put it in the report so often, and at some point we'll say, my insurance guy said it has to go everywhere. The more the better. I'm like, okay.
George Karampoulis
You have it in your agreement. I have it in the agreement.
Ian Robertson
Me too.
George Karampoulis
You have it in a disclaimer, maybe because I also have created a tab in the very end for awareness or disclaimers, and then you just put it in the report for all the comments that you wrote, instead of writing it 10 times or five times. So I think you're covered, yeah.
Ian Robertson
And that's basically what I gathered from the attorneys that I consulted with on it, they're like, even I put it in my ratings. So if that rating goes in, it says you have to do this, and that has held up a lot, like, people will come back, they're like, the AC died a year and a half later. I'm like, okay, well, I did say it was 40 years old. I did say it needed maintenance, and that rating does say, have it looked at by a contractor. And one thing that I learned is to have it evaluated before commitment. And that was an important term that I learned from another inspector and has held its weight over the years. So if we tell them recommend evaluation by a qualified contractor, but say they do it after they move in, and they're like, now I have no recourse. You didn't tell me to do it then. Now you say before commitment, so they haven't bought the home, their earnest money hasn't gone hard yet. And so before commitment means they can still do something. They can still walk away from the transaction, so they're not held to the fire. So there's just a little thing that I learned from a home inspector and has held up over time. Yeah, recommend evaluation before commitment and not before closing.
Ian Robertson
I use prior to closing sometimes, but then you eliminate the other factors. Okay, not everybody is for closing. Maybe someone just lives there and he called you. So yeah, before commitment makes a general same statement, idea. I like it.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, yeah. I kind of shied away from before closing because closing and commitment are two different things. So 10 minutes before closing, before you sign the papers, your earnest money has gone hard. So let's say you're putting 20% down on a $500,000 house. Now that liability turns into $100,000 liability.
George Karampoulis
I like it. So you make me change comments again.
Ian Robertson
Yeah, I can see. Well, you already made me change mine. I already have a couple of them now I gotta go back and look at, thanksGeorge. But this is a good discussion. This is where we learn, and hopefully other people learn from this too. Tell me a little bit about your disclaimers at the end, because I do something like that too. I have disclaimers above each section, but I keep those very short one, maybe two sentences, like exterior, the house has like two sentences that say, hey, listen, you know, foliage, time of the year, rain, all this stuff, can limit our inspection. But then at the end, I have a big disclaimer like you. Is there anything in particular that you liken to have in your template for that?
George Karampoulis
So all right, again, using Inspector Toolbelt, you have the option to make that as a tab. So for the online format, at least, it's not like, okay, the right in front of your eyes, full paragraph. It's like a tab that, if you click, then it will open the disclaimer. So I like that, because I might put actually 3, 4, 5, disclaimers. It depends on the age of the house too. The standard disclaimers, they are there no matter what, are for things like typos or grammar, because I want to aware the client and say, look, I am doing the inspection report at the same time with the inspection, like as I go. So yes, if I am in the attic or in the crawl space, I might click a wrong button or I might write a wrong thing. It's okay. So I just put that disclaimer. It did happen before to me. That's why I mentioned like that, instead of writing deck, I wrote, the other d word.
Ian Robertson
Oh, really? We don't need the description of what the comments said either. This is a PG show, George.
George Karampoulis
So yeah, I'm like, so how could I prevent from, you know, or let the people know that, hey, I might make a mistake, but that's what I came up with. And the funny thing is that the client at that case came to me and he said, hey, we understand it's okay. Like, mistakes happen. You might have your mind somewhere else. But that stays in the report, in that tab for the disclaimers for good. Other than that, I have disclaimers according to the age, if someone tells me,you know, a specific age of the property, then I put the specific disclaimer of the issue that I might find, like polybutylene, the electrical panels, they are, you know, known for fire hazards. Soaluminum wiring, whatever the years of common use was back then, I just, you know, put it as a disclaimer in the end.
Ian Robertson
Nice. I mean, you brought us from the beginning to the end of the report, and these were some really great suggestions. I wrote down the one specifically for myself here. See picture for example, instead of see it for what the issue was. I think that was a really great one. I wrote down a couple others here. I like the parentheses to make sure that we say the technical term so the contractor knows that we know what we're talking about. For our normal human being clients that, you know, doesn't know what hydrostatic pressure is, it helps them understand but these, these were really great suggestions,George, thank you. Because template creation and report writing is, I mean, ultimately, it's the product that we leave.
George Karampoulis
Yeah.
Ian Robertson
We could be a great inspector, but if we don't leave a great report.. Like I've always said, it's like having a really great engine and a beautiful car with no wheels on it. It doesn't go anywhere. So George, thank you for taking your time. From what I understand, it snowed in Georgia today for you. So everybody will know when this podcast was recorded by that fact, but have fun playing in the snow. You guys don't get it very often. And thank you very much for being on.
George Karampoulis
Thank you very much as well. And you know, as I said, I moved from HomeGauge to Inspector Toolbelt, and by using those click buttons, it saved me so much time. So thank you very much. But yeah, I'm going to enjoy some snow.
Ian Robertson
Nice, well, thank you and everybody, if you want a copy of George's template, get in touch with him. The info will also be in the transcript here. So reach out and thanks again, George.
George Karampoulis
Have a good one.
Ian Robertson
You too.
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